It’s been almost three months now since Bill and I retired, sold almost everything we owned, bought a motorhome, and set out on the adventure of our lives as full-time RVers… We are absolutely loving ever single minute of this journey we are on, and have not regretted one single decision we made that brought us to this new way of living…

I have been asked many times by family and friends what made us decide to sell our home and almost everything we owned, buy a 39ft motorhome, and live on the road… Well, that’s a story yet to be told… However, what I will share with you now is some things we have learned since we started this adventure… things like repurposing and/or “giving second chances” to things that would otherwise be discarded…

Things like discarded swimming noodles found on the lake beach…, how could they ever be repurposed into a useful item for our RV life? Take a look…

We have three slide outs on our motorhome and eight storage areas under our motorhome… Well when our slide outs are extended, which they are when we are parked and living in our motorhome like we are now… if you go to get anything out of the storage areas under the slide outs… if you are not VERY careful when you go to stand up you will hit your head on these slide outs and it is NOT a pleasant experience at all… enough said…. so what to do…? Oh, my Bill, in all his wisdom… happened to notice that another motorhome parked in the campgrounds had pool noodles cut down the middle and placed on the ridge of the slide out where some people hit their heads… so when he found some discarded pool noodles on the lake beach, he brought them home and just like magic…no more sore heads.. I tell Bill all the time that I hooked my wagon to his star because he is so bright, and I’m hoping his star will make me a little brighter too… 🙂

Another little thing I learned how to give a “second chance” to is an empty Kleenex box… Why you might ask? Well when you live in a small space you want things to be contained within small spaces, and we reuse our plastic grocery bags to deposit trash we pick up on our daily walks around the lake. When we first started out I just had a big bunch of plastic grocery bags stuffed into one bag and that big bag took up a lot of space in my linen closet… but I watched an episode of this old house and learned that you can take an empty Kleenex box and stuff a LOT of plastic bags into it and they pop out just like Kleenex do… Just look and see how compact my soon to be repurposed grocery bags are now… who knew?

Now the next few pictures are an update to how the water here at Quail Lake continues to recede just since we arrived here on June 9th, 2015. It just amazes me that even though we have had some really major rain storms, some that were constant, soaking rains… the lake continues to recede… When we arrived, all of this was under water. The maintenance crew continues to push the fishing dock out further and further as the water continues to recede. You see all the brown dirt on the cement… that is dried dirt that was under water as well as the plants that are along the side of the cement…

all of this was under water when we arrived her in June.

They have pushed the fishing dock out so far that it is almost reaching the marker that lets boaters know to stay clear of shallow water…

The tent you see just beyond the trees (that are now getting a “second chance” at seeing the sunlight…) is a prime camp spot because when the lake is at its normal level… that campsite is just a few feet away from the water…

I took a picture of the tree bent over in the water, in relationship to the fishing dock as it sits today, as a reference point for my future post that will show how much lower the lake will go before we leave in October.

This next picture is a little fuzzy, but it is a tarantula… We got a call from the girl working the gate booth last night letting us know that someone reported a tarantula in the girls bathroom just beyond our campsite… Bill went down and captured it in a trash can, brought it to me for a picture… but I wasn’t going to spend too much time trying to get just the right pose seeing how it was crawling towards me… so this is the best I could do… Bill took it outside the campsite and let it go…”second chance” so many others might have killed it…. However, we are not here to destroy the wild life, or critters, unless it comes down to us or them…But it was a learning experience for a family that happened to be walking by as I was trying to capture the picture… they had three little boys that were just over the moon excited to see this “giant” spider…

Everyday brings something new and exciting for Bill and I so…

Stay Tuned!

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Oh how I LOVE this post!!! First…thank god Bro let the tarantula go free…they eat scorpions and cockroaches!!! They are a very good thing even though they scare the shit out of me/us. And do you know they can jump? And I mean jump high. I will NEVER forget the first (and only) time that I saw one jump major feet. Scared me to death. Anyway, glad you all didn’t kill him. I love that you are so documenting your trip. Suzan learned to be so resourceful in Morocco when there wasn’t stuff that we are so used to having here in the USA, and you’re learning something similar to be resourceful with the space you have. This will be with you for the rest of your life. I just love all of it…the documenting of the water levels…just LOVE your journey and how you share with us!! Keep em coming! xoxo your frister aka gg.

Thanks frissy, aka gg, NO, I had NO idea the tarantula could jump.., and I probably would have s##t my pants if it had while I was trying to get a picture of it for my blog post… I did know that they are a good thing and eat other bad things like scorpions… enough said about that.. but we didn’t want to cause it any harm so Bro did let it go… Yes, we are learning sooo much about living in a small space and loving everything about it. Love and hugs, XoXo your frister… 🙂

Yes, Aunt Ellen, I didn’t want any harm to come to the tarantula because they are not harmful to us… they eat scorpions and other bad things… so Bill let him go far away from the campsites… We are truly loving every minute of our new way of living and we really do have all the comforts of home… we have EVERYTHING we need and NOTHING we don’t.. XoXo

Great post! Amazing pictures of the water! Bill is a very smart man to use the noodles and save your noggins. Glad the scorpion was re-homed instead of killed. Thank you for all your posts. I look forward to reading your adventures. XoXo

Thanks Kathy, but that was a tarantula not a scorpion. Tarantula’s eat scorpions which in my opinion is a good thing… if it had been a scorpion, I might not have been so willing to spare his life and let him go… just saying cause we all know how I feel about scorpions… XoXo